2017 is coming to a close real soon. It’s a time of the year when you reflect on the year that almost was and look forward to another year that will be. Part of your reflection is to look into the things you’ve done so far and find ways on how to improve them.
As a blogger, you must find better ways on how to engage with your readers so you can grow your traffic and reach your goals with it. Whether it is to sell your products or make money off your ads and affiliate links, you need to find better ways on how to reach those goals.
And what better way to stay true to your word of doing better on your blog than on 2018? Below is a short checklist of things you need to cross out before next year begins so you can position your blog to achieve greater profits moving forward.
1. I must publish better content
At the heart of every successful blog is content that resonates with your target audience.
This means it’s important to cater content to your readers by creating content they care about.By building relationships and connections with your audience through the content that you publish, you immediately carve a place in your niche. Being fully aware of what your blog is and what you need to write within it comes from knowing who your target readers are, first and foremost.
If you have yet to identify your target audience, develop a reader persona. It will help you refine your research and writing process, so everything you do is deliberate to making your reader persona happy.
Next, after knowing who your readers are and what they want, is to create higher quality content. Consider the Skyscraper technique to provide more than enough information to satiate the needs of your reader. And use visuals, they’re more effective in engaging site visitors compared to text alone. Consider high-quality, professional stock photography sites and other tools if you don’t have the skill or knowledge to create them yourself.
2. I must publish consistently
One of the most significant issues with resolutions, in general, is the lack of a follow-through. People are typically inspired and driven during the first few days starting the year. They try their best to reach their goals. However, as the weeks go by, they lose the fire in their eyes. They become unmotivated. Excuses eventually play a role as to why they weren’t able to achieve their goals that week.
Next thing you know, it’s like they never resolved to begin the year!
This is commonplace in blogging. It’s easy to make promises as to what you want to and should do. The real problem is how you plan to sustain that level of commitment over the course of the year.
A solution to this problem is by developing an editorial calendar. The calendar will help you lay out your plans for the coming weeks and months, so you have a schedule to follow when writing your posts. You can spread yourself evenly on days so you won’t get burned out by the tasks at hand.
Once you have created your calendar, you can proceed writing the posts and to publish each at their respective dates so your blog won’t run out of content. Following your editorial calendar to a tee will help you build a following as you continue churning out content on a consistent basis.
3. I must get better hosting
Your web host may seem like an afterthought. Although its content is the bread and butter of your blog, it won’t matter if you don’t have the right web host in place.
If you chose just some random web hosting provider without thinking, then you risk your site from experience slow loading times and lots of server downtime. These factors could lead to high bounce rate as you will be unable to build a readership.
This year, you must focus on getting your blog in tip-top shape by choosing the best hosting provider for all your needs!
However, it may be easier said than done. If you’re not familiar with how hosting works, then you might find it difficult to make an informed decision on which provider to use. Nonetheless, it doesn’t have to be difficult.
There are hosting review sites that will help break down the different hosting providers available and offer your objective and unbiased opinions about each. Best of all, the reviews are easy to understand, so you don’t have to be a tech geek to comprehend how the different hosting providers fare.
4. I must choose the best website platform for me
I know, this topic has been done to death. The blogging platform most would suggest is WordPress. Based on my personal experience, I strongly believe that WordPress offers you the tools and features that will help you grow your more efficiently than any other platform.
If you haven’t tried building your blog from WordPress, below is a video on how you can set the platform from the ground up.
However!
WordPress is not always the best answer. There are lots of other capable platforms in the market that can help you grow your blog more efficiently.
Want a straightforward, no-frills approach to your blogging? Try Medium.
Want to build your blog without any coding or design experience? Squarespace and Weebly might do the trick.
Tried WordPress and don’t like it? Good! That means it’s time for you to choose what’s best for you.
Doesn’t mean you have to use what people keep suggesting to you. If it doesn’t work, it’s time to move on to another platform. And choosing the ones from this list might help just do the trick.
5. I must build an email list
Creating an email list is a blogging goal in and of itself. There are lots of benefits from collecting and nurturing your list that it’s hard to pass up on the opportunity of finding ways to attract more signups.
The first rule of thumb when building an email list is to ask.
In today’s permission-based marketing world, you need to request emails from people to get them. Use an opt-in form builder to help you create dynamic forms that will grab the attention of readers and compel them to sign up.
At the same time, you need to give people a reason why they should give away their emails to you. A visitor’s email is one of his/her most valued online possessions, and they don’t give them away for free.
This reason is why opt-in bribes exist. They help create an incentive for people to sign up for your email list. Once they do, they will receive the bribe to their email as a “thank you” for signing up. Using bribes is ideal if you haven’t established authority in your niche yet.
Conclusion
These blogging resolutions are nothing new, to be quite honest. The suggestions above have been mentioned time and again by others in the past.
However, as 2018 draws near, now is the best time for you to take actions to these tips. If you care about your blog’s success, then you need to start doing something about it very soon.